Horror Thoughts ‘12—Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981) *

I had intended to watch the
original 1978 version of “Piranha” for this year’s Horrorfest. A task easier
said than done. I remember the campiness of that one from seeing it as a kid.
Of the four official franchise “Piranha” movies, it seems to be regarded as the
best. I doubt it stands the test of time, but I may never know, since DVD
copies seem to be out of print and I didn’t find a streamable version on any of
my platforms.

So instead I got to take in
the second installments of the reboot and the original. The second in the
original two film series was infamously directed by now mega director James
Cameron. It pretty amazing to think that someone could go from this to “Titanic”.
The story goes that producer George A. Romero brought on Cameron after several
writers and directors were fired. Production was already underway and many of
the scenes had been filmed. Cameron put it together on the fly. Of course, I
don’t really know if this is true because Romero’s name is nowhere to be found
in the credits of this film and Cameron’s is. Cameron often thanks Romero for
his start, but it really looks to me like he was left for fish bait on this
one.

Anyway, the movie is awful.
It’s not awful because of the direction; but the poor acting, a terrible script
and a predilection to actually take itself seriously makes it really quite
dull. The movie starts off with the same exploitational charm as the others in
its franchise, but eventually it just becomes a bad rip-off of “Jaws”, with a
sheriff trying to save the day on the ocean and in a helicopter. Brody would be
ashamed.

Yet the sheriff here is one of the best parts of the movie. Lance
Henriksen got his start as the sheriff in this film, and he’s about the only
member of the cast with any acting talent whatsoever. The film started a long
relationship between Cameron and Henriksen. Cameron wrote the role of the
Terminator with Henriksen in mind to play the cybernetic assassin from the
future, but the film’s backers needed a bigger name to hang their money on. Henriksen
played a detective investigating the Terminator’s murders instead. Cameron
eventually got an android role for Henriksen when he wrote the role of Bishop
for his friend in “Aliens”.

Of course, none of this has
anything to do with “Piranha Part Two: The Spawning”. It’s just much more
interesting.

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About Me

Andrew D. WellsAndrew is a professionally trained actor and stage director. He was a reporter for the daily newspaper The Marshall Democrat-News. He has been critiquing film since Mr. Lucas released the first of his "Star Wars" prequels in 1999. His reviews can also be seen atMarshall Democrat-News